Both constructivist and sociocultural views of learning and
instruction stresses the crucial role of active engage-ment. R
R Hake [1] have in large-scale study demonstrated that curricula
that use "active engagement" instructional strategies
achieve high gains in the Force Concept Inventory test (FCI) [2].
However most testing have been done at the end or immediately
after a course. The important question is thus if strategies that
purport to achieve high gains in conceptual tests such as the
FCI-test or the Force and Motion ConceptualEvaluation (FMCE) [3]
produce a permanent change in students world view from "Aristotelian"
to "Newtonian" or if the effects reported are only temporary?
At Högskolan Dalarna we have reformed our introductory physics
courses into "active engagement" using a modified RealTime
Physics [4] approach. The FCI- and FMCE-tests have been used as
a follow test on a group of pre-service teachers. Five semesters
after their physics course they got a 71% FCI follow-test average.
As a comparison engineering students in a reformed mechanics course
got 73% FCI post-test average (45% normalised gain) when tested
immediately after their course. Francis et al [5] have also probed
the extent to which student gains on the FCI resulting from active
engagement instruction persisted beyond the conclusion of the
course and found little decline in FCI scores over several years
following instruction at their institution. Our data and the data
by Francis et al implies that curricula who actively engage the
students, do appear to make a permanent change in students' conceptual
framework.

* Partial financial support from the Swedish National Agency
for Higher Education, Council for Renewal of Undergraduate Education,
is gratefully acknowledged
** The work described in this paper was mainly done while the
author was employed at Högskolan Dalarna, Sweden.